my dad, the bat
by she-who-hears
Summary: From loner of the night to father of one (and counting.) In which Bruce Wayne learns to be a father to a grieving child.


Work Text:

Bruce Wayne prided himself on his skills. He could memorize a 50 character password upside-down and reflected over a window in less than a second, could exit a closed safe quicker than Houdini, and was fluent in so many forms of martial arts that one monk he trained under actually named one after him. So Bruce can confidently say he's prepared for nearly everything life can throw at him.

Nearly.

Little boys with dewy faces and itty bitty noses, apparently not.

He didn't _plan_ on taking in said little boy. He was perfectly content in a lone life as Batman, flirting with Catwoman (but with the passionate and sexy throes of Justice™ more), and discovering why the _fuck _Gotham was so objectively shitty (but he loves the city, it's _his _and nobody else's.) But a wayward circus act later and he's traded his dumbbells for teddy bears and late night Gala schmoozing with bed-time stories. Dick was a generally happy child though; the first few months of living at the Manor he understandably didn't even smile, but the child was learning to live after the death of parents.

Dick was currently babbling his little mouth off at Clark, who thankfully responded appropriately even when the child switched from English to Arabic to French, used to the multicultural community of the circus. The only problem was his very blatant neglect of Alfred's dinner (spaghetti bolognaise, artfully garnished with sprinkles of kale like the tasteful British connoisseur he was.)

Bruce carefully twirled several strands of singular spaghettos onto his fork. "Dick," he chided gently, and the child thankfully terminated his enrapture of one of Clark's Wholesome Farm Folktales to turn to Bruce. Bruce placed the bite into Dick's mouth, taking a napkin and lightly wiping his cheeks. Without missing a beat, the child turned back to his super-powered friend, waiting to finish the bite until Bruce fed him the next.

That was the other thing. Little idiosyncrasies Bruce somehow didn't notice until after they had gradually integrated into his life. Like feeding his seven year old his food like his parents used to do for him. Or helping him to bed after a late night at another Gala. Bruce would hold the sleeping child against his chest, Dick's scruffy head lolling off of Bruce's shoulder, slightly drooling on his 7,000 dollar Armani suit (Selina said it was ugly anyway, so whatever.) It was healthy for Dick too, for Bruce to parent him; after the sudden death of parents, the boy _needed_ to feel protection from a parental figure. Like falling asleep at a party and feeling safe that no matter what, Bruce would pick him up and put him to bed because that's what he was supposed to do.

After the drive home, Bruce would go through the routine of kicking off his tight shoes at the door, expensive loafers next to a pair of tiny, red converse. Trudge upstairs to Dick's soft blue room, wake him up enough for the barest amount of coherency and sniffles in different tongues.

Dick would lean against Bruce and blink sleepily, Bruce holding Dick's toothbrush and hand, and helping him brush his teeth. Dick would stumble into his pajamas and crawl into Bruce's arms again, who would place him in his bed, absent-mindedly brushing away a stray dark lock curling on the chubby cheek (When did Bruce become so free with touch? So intimate without so much as a flinch?)

"Goodnight, chum."

"G'night, Broose…"

Dick had become such a staple part of Bruce's life, placing Bruce in a parental role. Of course Bruce hadn't even hit his late twenties yet, and Dick had grown up with his parents with plenty of loving memories that would not be erased. Bruce was younger than fucking _Joey from Friends_ and hadn't had the blessing of raising Dick from birth. John and Mary Grayson _were_ Dick, and the Grayson name would thrive even without it's givers. The world would not forget the Flying Graysons, not today, not ever, so long as Dick still breathed.

("I don't want you to be my dad," whispered a newly orphaned Dick Grayson, tear tracks still visible on his cheeks, but otherwise calm. The blanket on his bed were pulled all the way to his chin, and slender, olive-toned fingers clutched the warm fabric, faintly bruising the already existing crescent marks on his palm. Outside, rain softly pattered over the earth. Almost lovingly, as retribution for the massacres of innocence and life. The world would give them kindness only once.

"Okay," replied a newly warded Bruce Wayne, hand carding through the child's hair. Bruce knows, he _fucking _knows. Even the thought of another parent would rile up a younger Bruce. Though deceased, his parents still lived. They lived in his memories and his heart and his dreams, why _sacrilege_ what little he had of them?

"We can be friends, though," Dick said as a-matter-of-factly, not quite an afterthought. "You can come to my birthday party, and I'll cut the cake, and I'll give you a big piece.")

That seemed so long ago.

Dick had resumed his chatter to Clark, describing soaring Egyptian monuments. "Mami used to say the pyramids were made out of biscuit dough. That if you reached over and took a bite, it would be of honey and sugar. I really wanted to try it, but we weren't allowed to get near the pyramids, so I tried eating the sand, but it was dry and I chipped my tooth on a rock."

A gifted child Richard was.

Which brought up his next concern; Dick's _status_. High-class Gotham society was hell; the rich dominating with overt superiority. Dick was a sweet, precocious child, incredibly intelligent as well, but with his foreign roots, lilting accent, and ethnic ambiguity, he would be gossiped about unrelentlessly. Dick was proud of his heritage, speaking Romani often as not to forget it (it wasn't a written language, so obviously Bruce traveled and wrote his own dictionary. No way his kid was going to lose one of the only connections to his family) and flipping off chairs and bannisters, or hesitantly asking Alfred to recreate dishes from Russia and India and all of the beauty of Eurasia.

Bruce was still trying to figure out how to protect Dick from the judgemental gazes of Gotham hounds without forcing him to completely assimilate to a new culture. Perhaps a white (Jewish? Was that still white?) man adopting a not-white child would obviously create new challenges.

_"Bruce, what do you think?"_ Dick asked him in Romani, sipping his milk patiently.

_"About what?" _Bruce eloquently replied. Dick sighed with all the might of a seven year old with a milk mustache, reminding Bruce of those feisty little lion cubs his mother would show him when they visited the zoo (which was only one time. Martha Wayne, after discovering the abuse many of those animals faced, graciously bought many of them and sent them to several wildlife preservations.)

"Isn't a muffin just a frostingless cupcake?" Dick asked, exasperated. His socked feet were lightly swinging under him, lightly bumping into Bruce's leg for no other reason than being a Little Shit. For that, Bruce poked his side, resulting in a giggle.

Clark genuinely looked distressed. "I-what? No! Their formulas are completely different. Cupcakes are baked to be cupcakes, and muffins are baked to be muffins!"

"So if I were to place a frostingless cupcake and a plain muffin in front of you, you would be able to discern the difference?" Bruce asked coolly, his inner CEO emerging whenever someone was bitching in front of him and his kid.

"Oh absolutely," Clark said seriously, "It's all in the personality."

"I would beg to differ," Dick replied haughtily, "Neither of you would be able to _cern_ such _nuances_. Only one with a superior palette as I may. Uncle Clark's a farmboy and Bruce is, like, old. I heard him listening to Fleetwood Mac the other day."

"Brat." Bruce retorted with no real bite, flicking Dick's little nose up. That was another thing he wasn't expecting with parenthood. Itty bitty noses for itty bitty children. Bruce never thought he was _overly _ large like the meatsack Clark was, but around Dick he appeared to completely dwarf him. His pinky finger was larger than Dick's nose, and Dick was so small he could crawl into Bruce's bed at night and actually scare Bruce. What if he rolled over and _suffocated _him? Richard was so tiny, how would his child ever survive in the world if Bruce had to cut up his food every night?

"Alfred, thoughts," Dick all but demanded as Clark frantically called Diana.

"Muffins are much more versatile than cupcakes, young Master," Alfred sniffed, before placing a place of cookies in front of the three young men. The fact that Bruce was a grown-ass man meant nothing in that moment; that alien was _not _going to steal cookies that rightfully belonged to him and his child. Clark, the bastard, expected Bruce's possessiveness, and stole half the plate before flying upstairs.

"Diana says most man-food tastes the same to her!"

Bruce growled, before whisking off a giggling Richard and racing after the Kryptonian dumbass. "Those cookies are for my child, you insensitive Boy Scout!"

Dick wrapped his arms around Bruce and squeezed tightly. Yes, parenthood was hard. The hardest fucking thing in the entire world, because Bruce now had a small child depending on him for the next eleven years of his life and more, needing advice and comfort and security. Bruce was growing up along Dick, and in the _field _Bruce was involved in, the chances of Dick being orphaned for a second time was high. But even in death, Bruce would make sure that Dick wouldn't grow up alone and empty. He would be surrounded with family and friends, not consumed with bitterness and resentment. He can promise the Graysons one thing, at least. One thing.

Bruce was absolutely terrified, but looking down at mischievous blue eyes, he knew that adopting Richard was the only thing he'd done right in a long, long time.


End file.
